Heaven Help Me
by music842
Summary: What if someone were there to stop Dallas that night? What if Mrs. Curtis could somehow stop Dally from destroying himself? One-shot, complete.


**S.E. Hinton owns The Outsiders, and I do not. One shot. Hope you enjoy!**

"Johnny, don't die on me now. Please."

Dallas spun around and punched the wall, hitting it until his knuckles were raw, and that was the only thing he could feel. He knew the kid was staring at him, but he didn't care. _Damnit Johnny, why?_

Dallas ran out of the hospital room, away from Johnny's lifeless body, down the hallway, almost into one of the nurses. He passed the doctor, the doctor who couldn't help Johnny, and pointed the unloaded gun he had been carrying at his face.

"Why you bother helpin' people, huh? Doesn't do any good." He pulled the trigger, laughing at the doctor's fearful expression. But his laugh turned into a choked sob, and he ran. He felt like he couldn't breathe, the hospital walls were closing in on him, the antiseptic smell clawing at his lungs, making every breath painful. When the cool of the night air hit his face, he gasped, gulping in the fresh air like he was taking his last breaths. _Maybe that's not too far off from the truth_, Dallas almost hoped.

Buck's T-Bird was where he had left it, hastily parked in between two spaces, when he had ran in with Ponyboy after the rumble. He heaved open the door, barely able to pull himself in, he was shaking so badly. Dallas tried to shove the key into the ignition, but his vision was blurry, and it wouldn't go in. Eventually, he slammed the keys against the dashboard with such force that he dented it.

He didn't know where he would go, but he was done with this. Johnny was dead...He felt himself choke back a sob. It was his fault Johnny was dead, if he had just gotten into that blasted church sooner..._God, it's my fault..._

"Dally?" a woman's voice called sadly.

Dallas whipped around, ready to attack whoever was there, and then his heart stopped cold.

"M...Mrs. Curtis?" _I'm hallucinating...I'm so out of it, I'm hallucinating. Just drive to the store, and do what you were planning to do, and it'll be over soon enough. This isn't real..._

Mrs. Curtis, exactly as he remembered her, except perhaps a little less solid, was sitting next to him in the passenger seat. She still had the same warm smile, the wavy golden hair, the same kindness in her eyes. She may have been the only adult that Dallas had ever held any kind of real affection for. But she was dead, months ago it had happened...

"Dallas, I know you don't think so, but you are still needed here. Johnny would not want this for you." She smiled sadly, looking at him intently.

Dallas was too distraught to offer much of a reply. "I can't..."

"I know, sweetheart, I know." Mrs. Curtis took Dally in her arms, and gently brushed his hair back, trying to provide at least a little comfort to the broken boy she held.

Dally clenched his jaw tightly. _Keep it together, there's still time, if you rob that store, the police...the police will be after you, and you won't have to feel anything ever again_...But Mrs. Curtis just kept holding him, and he finally gave in to the tears that had been threatening to overtake him since he had gotten to the hospital. He couldn't even remember the last time he had cried; it hurt so fuckin' bad.

"It's my fault," Dallas whispered between sobs.

"No, it's not. You are not to blame for this. It was Johnny's time, Dally. There was nothing you could have done," Mrs. Curtis said gently.

Dallas let her words wash over him, still not entirely convinced. There were so many things he should have done differently...if he had pulled Johnny out sooner, he would have been alive. If he had stopped them from going in to that church in the first place, he would've been alive. If he hadn't been bothering those girls at the Nightly Double, he would have been alive...

"Have...have you seen Johnny?" Dally asked. He knew he was being stupid; Mrs. Curtis was dead, she had been for months, and he was obviously dreaming, or hallucinating, or out of his mind. Maybe all three. But he had to ask.

At this, Mrs. Curtis smiled. "Yes, Dally. He's happy; he's not in pain any more. Mr. Curtis and I will take care of him for you, he is safe. No one can hurt him anymore."

Mrs. Curtis looked off to the corner of the parking lot, near the hospital building, and noticed someone walking in their direction. Ponyboy. How she wished she could speak to her son, reassure all three of her boys, but that was not what she was sent for, and she could already feel herself being pulled back, the colors and sounds around her becoming muted.

"Dallas, I am not able to be here any longer. I am being called back. Can you please take Ponyboy home?"

Dallas nodded slightly, and Mrs. Curtis smiled, brushing Dally's hair back a last time.

"You are going to be all right, Dally. It's going to hurt, probably for a long time, but you will be all right. You were a good brother to him. He knows that. Be good for me, ok?" Mrs. Curtis faded into the black of the night, and it was as if no one had been there at all. Dally was left staring straight ahead at the steering wheel, lost in thought.

No more than two minutes later, Ponyboy had found the car. He was a little surprised, the way Dally had run out, he expected him to be miles away from the hospital by now. He opened the passenger door, and Dallas didn't so much as flinch.

"Dal?" Ponyboy asked tentatively. He looked messed up; he was bloody and cut up from the rumble, but that's not what Ponyboy was worried about; hell, he probably looked even worse himself, but Dally's eyes were red and puffy, and his face wet. He had obviously been crying.

"Let's get you home. I don't want Darry kickin' my ass 'cause he don't know where you're at," Dallas said huskily.

They drove home silently, both boys lost in their own thoughts. When they pulled up in front of the Curtises' house, all the lights were on, and Dally knew Darry and Soda were probably worried about their brother. Ponyboy stumbled out of the car, and Dally grabbed his arm. He didn't look good, Dally thought absently. They both walked into the house, and Dally expected them to immediately start in on Ponyboy, but he must have looked quite the sight, because Darry immediately started talking to him in a low, soothing voice.

"Dally? What happened? Where were you? Are you all right?"

Dallas made no move to answer, but Soda had grabbed Pony, and made him sit down on the couch. Dally was glad, he looked like he was about to pass out.

"Dal? Hey, buddy, what's wrong?" Darry repeated, walking over to the place Dally stood in front of the doorway.

"Johnny..." Dally's voice broke, and he was afraid he would start crying again.

"Did he get worse?" Soda asked worriedly, sitting on the couch next to Ponyboy, who was silent and shaky.

Darry let out a sigh. He had a sinking feeling that it was worse than that; Dallas looked about out of his mind, in all the time he'd known him, Darry had never seen Dally this upset.

"He...I..." was all Dally could get out before he was crying. He stood there, his hands covering his face, shaking. _Oh God, Johnny..._

Dallas immediately felt Darry put his arms around him.

"Dally, shh, it's all right." Darry held him, rubbing his back. Darry hadn't realized what losing Johnny would do to Dallas. But Darry thought back to their reunion with Ponyboy at the hospital, how upset and relieved he had been, how he had broken down, so thankful his brother was ok, and suddenly Dally's reaction made all the sense in the world. Johnny was just a much a brother to Dallas as Pony and Soda were to him.

All of the boys sat in shocked silence as Darry held a sobbing Dallas. He couldn't catch his breath, and he couldn't stifle the enormous guilt he still felt. Mrs. Curtis' assurances that Johnny's death was in no way his fault (_did that even happen?_) did not lessen his sense of responsibility for his friend's death. He was supposed to protect Johnny, keep him safe, and he let him go into a burning building and get killed.

"Pony, what happened?" Soda asked quietly.

"Johnny...he's dead. We told him about beatin' the Socs, and...I don't know, he just died."

It felt like all the air had gone out of the room. No one had expected Ponyboy to say anything different, not with how Dallas was right then, but to hear it confirmed somehow made it so irrevocable, final.

Ponyboy moved to get up, and then stumbled forward. Soda caught him just before he fell.

"Kiddo, you don't look good. I think you should go lie down. Come on," Soda said, as he led him to his bed. Darry looked over at his brother worriedly.

"Two-bit, can you grab a few pillows and blankets out of the hall closet?" Darry asked, still holding Dally, who was still crying, inconsolable. He wasn't going to leave Dallas alone like this, he could too easily run off and do something stupid, get himself thrown in jail, or worse.

Two-bit nodded, his jovial smile that he wore most days gone, replaced by concern. He put a hand on Dally's shoulder before getting the pillows and blankets.

When Two-bit came back, Darry spoke softly to Dallas. "Hey, buddy, why don't you go lie down on the couch, get some sleep?"

Dally let Darry lead him to the couch, and immediately closed his eyes, welcoming the dark blanket of sleep that would make him forget, if only for a few hours. He felt someone keep brushing his hair back, and it calmed him down enough that he was able to lose himself to the darkness.

* * *

Darry, Two-Bit and Steve slept in the living room with Dallas, Darry on the armchair, Two-Bit and Steve on the floor.

"Darry?"

"Yeah?" Darry whispered tiredly. He was too young for this; too young to be raising his brothers, too young to have lost a friend. The gang wasn't going to be the same without Johnny.

"Is he gonna be all right?" Two-Bit said, glancing across the darkened room at Dally, who was asleep on the couch, dead to the world.

Darry was quiet for several moments. "I don't know," he said truthfully. "I just don't know."

Usually Darry was the one to reassure everyone, the one with the level head, but he felt as lost as the rest of the gang now.

* * *

_One year later_

"Hey, Johnnycake." The towheaded young man stood in the small graveyard, kicking at the dirt with the toe of his boot.

The crisp fall air, slightly cooler than normal for Tulsa this time of year, cut through Dally's jacket, making him shiver. He looked down at Johnny's small gravestone. The parents of those kids he had saved had pooled their money for Johnny's funeral and a gravestone.

_Johnathan Cade_  
_Friend and Brother_

Dallas had been insistent about the brother part. He just wished that he could have said it when Johnny had been alive.

"We're doin' better now, kid. Pony's been keepin' up better with school, he was pretty messed up after you left. But he's pullin' all A's now. He's gonna go somewhere, get out of this dump."

Dallas pulled a cigarette out of his front pocket and lit it, sucking in the nicotine, willing his nerves to calm.

"Soda and Darry are ok, too. Darry ain't working so much any more, got a promotion, he's in charge of a bunch of other guys now."

Dally pulled his jacket tighter; the air grew colder as the sun started going down.

"I'm doin' better, too, Johnny. Been workin' at the stables, got my own place now. Haven't been in the cooler since...since everything happened. We miss you, kid."

Dallas looked up from Johnny's grave, as the sun was setting, red and fiery. Ponyboy had given him the note Johnny had written about a month after he had died. Pony passed it to him wordlessly, one night when he was over for dinner. Dally would never understand some of the crap that Pony and Johnny had talked about, but he did get up early one day, when everyone was still asleep, and sit outside on the back steps of the Curtis house with his pack of Kools, staring at the orange and gold sky, willing it to give him an answer.

He shook himself out of his thoughts. "See you later, kid, hope you're doin' ok up there. Say hi to Mrs. Curtis for me, will ya?"


End file.
